


When The Night Lights Are Low

by kallopeia



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:56:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallopeia/pseuds/kallopeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Neverland is a dark place they say, and just how much darkness would you endure, for the sake of one you love?</i><br/>Emma Swan wants her son back. After rediscovering her son the year before, Emma has found herself loving, caring and needing the family that Henry has come to be to her, so when Tamara and Greg kidnap Henry to bring him to Neverland, Emma chases after them without hesitation. But Neverland itself is not the wondrous world Emma has read about since childhood, and the inhabitants of it are more dangerous than she can reckon. But the real danger lies upon the <i>Jolly Roger</i>, and within herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 0. Prologue

_  
There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan._

He was frail again, wrinkles lining his skin despite the roundness of his face that showed the youth. But youth was an awful long time, when it was spent in Neverland. Years passed into eons without thought or care, and frailty came, creeping onto his shoulders to weigh him down and bow his back. It was land where you must never grow up, where every breath meant the death of the adults, but it, too, had its own price to be paid.

He had dreamed of this world, when he was but a mere babe in swaddling clothes it seemed to him. He’d always dreamed of it, a place where winter never visited and summer existed eternal and his days were spent running and jumping and laughing. It was where he flocked to in his dreams, until there had been a boy at his window, with a rusty knife who had pried open the lock and taken him by the hand. _We will take you to where it’s never cold_ , he’d said, _leave your cloak behind. You won’t need it anymore_. The boy had offered out his hand and smeared a golden paste across his skin, and then they’d both flown from the window, leaving his father and the smack of his belt behind them both.

_Do I ever need go back?_ he'd asked, and the boy had answered _no_. He would take him to a place of sunlight days and sweet summer fruits, and he would never need leave. And he’d been glad for that, and was still, even though his bones ached and he felt as if there was once a fire within him that had been guttered and cleaned out, leaving only ashes and dust in the remains. He felt so cold now, all the time, even though the sun beat down on him day in and day out. It was too cold, all so cold.

“Are you alright Peter?” It was Lolly who asked him, and with the name, the fire returned inside of him, sparking into a flame that burned through the cold. _Peter. Peter Pan_. _I am Pan and I will never grow old._

“I need to go,” Pan told Lolly, who tilted his head to the side and looked at him with round, uncomprehending eyes. Lolly was a slow boy, with round features and fine hair that the other boys would say would fly away when the breeze whistled through the trees. He was named for his habit of sucking on the inside of his cheek when he was in particularly deep thought, as if sucking on some kind of sour sweet. He’d never taken offence to the name, just like none of the others had. It was the only name they had now, and the only one that really mattered. They were Bits and Claw and Tooth and Raggles and more besides. Only Pan had a name that was altogether different, but only Pan had a name that he hadn’t bestowed upon himself, and it wasn’t right for the others to name him either. Pan was the leader, not one of the boys.

“But you can’t Peter!” Lolly exclaimed as Pan clutched at the soft, taut skin of his arm to pull himself up. “You said we’d go and find treasure to bury in the caves and chase the mermaids from the lagoon! You can’t just _lea-_ ”

Thunder cracked suddenly outside the lair of the lost boys, and Lolly suddenly darted to skulk in the shadows, where the lantern light grew thinnest and could barely reach. “Coward,” Pan pronounced him as the positions of the two were suddenly reversed, now Lolly on the ground with his fingers digging into the wrinkling skin of Pan’s own arm. “Lost boys do not frighten at storms. We _laugh_ at them.” With that, Pan shook him off and reached for the bowl of golden paste on the roughly shaped wooden table. It gleamed, even as it was drawn away from light, as if it had captured the lantern’s flames within itself and now reflected it back to him. Smearing streaks of it across his skin, he could feel it begin to take effect, a sudden warmth kindling _inside_ his skin and _under_ it. Where the paste sat on him, his skin appeared to glow, suddenly brighter than the flickering light that the lantern could provide him. Familiar exhilaration swept over Pan as the paste began to take effect, his toes dragging by their very tips along the ground.

“Tell the others I’ll return. Tell them I want to find the caverns filled with gold and treasures the size of my fist when I get back!” He laughed at the thought. Maybe they’d find rubies the size of his head, or steal the pearls from the mermaids and laugh gaily as they shrieked after them to return with their combs and strings of jewels. But the lost boys never did return what they had stolen – that wasn’t any fun. They simply tossed it all into the caves and then sat atop the growing piles. The fun was in the _stealing_ , the sneaky little tricks to make them all look one way as they crept in from the others. Adults were all so _stupid_ , Pan had decided, and the mermaids weren’t much better at the game at all, though sometimes they caught the boys and dragged them down to the dark depths and wouldn’t let them be seen again. But that was their own fault; they’d let themselves be caught, the stupid fools. They weren’t half as clever as _him_.

“You _will_ return, won’t you Peter?”

Lolly was shivering in the corner, though Pan didn’t know why. The clouds that had brought the crack of thunder were nowhere to be seen, and light flooded in from the gaps between the roots of their tree and the roof of their home. Had they lived in the other worlds, the dreadful dreary worlds were you grew up and turned old and bitter, the winter rains would have dripped through the gaps and sent them into cold wet beds at night, but it never did here. Neverland was too fine a place for such horrid things.

“Of course I’ll return stupid,” he returned smartly, his body now a foot from the floor and rising. He flew around the room, a wide grin on his face, brushing his fingers across the ceiling so that dust and earth fell in his wake. “There’s no Neverland without _me_. Now stop being such a child, or I’ll send you to Hook to have the courage put in you again. Or maybe he’d just gut you instead, but he can never gut a true lost boy. We’re all much too clever for the likes of such a dark man.” With that remark, Pan left the shivering Lolly behind him, Pan’s laughter echoing through the air as he sped through the wind. It whistled through his airs, rushing in the spaces between his fingers and suddenly, he was _alive again_ , his skin tautening, the wrinkles and folds fading, the true image of boyishness again.

And as such a true image of boyishness, Pan did not notice – nor did he care to see – the cold stealing into Neverland as he flew away from it.


	2. 1. Arrival

_Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning._

Light. Light _everywhere_.

The smell of salt in the air, the lash of sea spray against her face, and the roar of the ocean, but what Emma noticed most was the _light_. She could hardly hear her own voice above the roar of the sea caught in the portal and the creak of the _Jolly Rodger_ as it circled the vortex. _It’s going to splinter apart_ , she thought in a moment of sudden panic as the noise around her seemed to mount. Her grip around the sail ropes tightened, burning against her flesh as the strong winds billowed into the sail cloth and pulled the wet rope through her grip, the salt of the water stinging against her raw skin. Beneath her, the ship _rolled_ , bucking like a mustang as it tried to ride the waves that were stirred into panic by the bean. _One bean_ , and now it was as if a hurricane had been set to storm underneath the waters, pulling and dragging them all down with it.

 _Creaaaaak_. “Oh God.” Emma felt her mouth shape the words but they were lost in the din as the ship’s wood strained. Warped? She was going to die on a pirate’s ship before she’d even managed to cross to Neverland, the quest over before it ever truly begun, and it was going to be because this clunking, creaking _mess_ of a ship couldn’t take the waves. How had it even survived the last portal, from the Enchanted Forest to Storybrooke? _You’re not going to give up on me now ship_ , Emma thought bitterly and _pulled_ , with all her might, against the sail’s rope, blindly hoping that this was what would speed them through the portal’s vortex.

They were circling deeper, being drawn towards the eye of the portal, and all Emma could do was hold onto the rope and look over the edge to hear the thundering roar of the noise as it grew louder. _Please, just take me to Henry. Take me to my son_.

Were they close yet? She couldn’t even tell.

The roar of noise, the incessant pull on her hands and the strong winds pushing and pulling at her from every direction as they rode the vortex down. Water sprayed against her face, plastering her hair to her skull and stinging her eyes – it was everywhere around her, just as surrounding as the light. The smell of salt, the taste of it, all around her, and blinding amounts of light in every direction except for up, where it seemed strangely dark and foreboding to gaze upon. Emma wasn’t the religious sort, but she’d be lying if she didn’t send silent prayers up to unknown deities to ask that she’d survive this hellish experience and find Henry on the other side, or more fervent prayers yet that he’d survived his own journey. They were both going to survive this; they’d survived worse. They’d survived curses and monsters, so they could survive _this_.

The wind roared in her ears, and there was the sound of rushing, of sudden movement, and a terrible sound of snapping that overrode all else, a crack so loud that Emma could near feel it in her bones. And then there was no sound at all.

It took a moment for Emma to register the stillness of the boat, and several more for her eyes to adjust, to start to see shadows through the light and the silhouettes of her companions around her. “Are we...?”

 _Dead?_ This couldn’t be Neverland, Emma thought, as she let the rope slip from her fingers. She stumbled across the deck of the Jolly Roger, still half blinded by the lights within the portal. Unsteady and inconstant footsteps around her told her the others were just as similarly knocked off vertigo by their journey.

“Steady – you don’t want to topple overboard, not in this weather.” Hook’s voice broke the silence around them, and Emma forced herself to still, to close her eyes and breathe in, to take in her surroundings. There was still the smell of salt in the air, but the silence was eerie, and not at all helped by the coolness of the air around her. There was no breeze, but the cold was _there_ , lingering on her skin and curling around her neck. Emma repressed a shudder. She’d always pictured Neverland as someplace warm, an eternal paradise of spring and playfulness. She’d never thought it would be _cold_.

And then she opened her eyes.

She saw the mist first – it was impossible to _miss_. It was so densely placed that she could scarcely see more than a few foot beyond the Jolly Rodger. For an awful moment, the thought dawned on her – _this was not Neverland_. There was a reason Neverland was not cold, and this was not the realm that held her son. They were somewhere else, with no way to get to him. She wanted to rage and kick and scream at the sudden realisation of separation, but there was nothing to lash out _at_. It was no one’s fault; just a bean’s, a bean already used and spent in this journey to this godforsaken place of mist and cold.

Mary Margaret seemed to think the same; she shucked off the rope that twisted around David and herself and walked across the deck to Gold, brow furrowed. “This – this _can’t_ be, Gold. This isn’t-“

“Oh, it is milady.” Hook’s voice was smooth as it cut across Mary Margaret’s. Turning her head, Emma saw him inhale deeply as he stepped away from the wheel of the ship, eyes cast out into the fog that surrounded them. “Welcome to Neverland, home of the Lost Boys and Pan.” His mouth was twisted in a sardonic smile, and bitterness crept into his tone as he spoke. “Is it everything you’d thought it would be?”

 _No_.

When she dreamt of Neverland with Neal – a young girl’s fancy taking flight, nothing more – it had been a world in full bloom, beaches and turquoise waters, deep colourful flowers, a true paradise. Neverland had been the hope for paradise and peace and a life of plenty, where she’d never have to worry about absent figures and the worries of being broke and shit out of luck. It hadn’t been this at all.

“It appears we’ve come while Pan is away. Pity, I always hated the winters here.”

Emma turned, crossing her arms over her chest. “ _Away?_ ” How could he be _away_? She knew the story of Peter Pan, but somehow, it seemed much more out of reach now she was confronted with this image. Peter Pan couldn’t be _away_ , not when she was here, looking for her son.

“Yes, away,” he replied, “most likely gone to steal away another few boys to add to his collection. And while Pan’s away, this world freezes. No, it’s rather more than that.” Hook paused, walking towards the side of the Jolly Roger and peering below. “It’s as if time itself stops. The creatures stop hunting the tribes, the tribes stop hunting the pirates, the pirates stop hunting the boys – and instead, the winter freezes them all where they stand, if they aren’t smart enough about it. Look, _ice_.”

Well steady on her feet, Emma strode across the deck and peered below. White ice surrounded the Jolly Roger in every direction, so far as the eye could see, coated with a layer of ice. Only where the ship was positioned was the ice cracked, jagged broken lines interrupting the otherwise seemingly smooth surface. The loud crack made sense now; it was their arrival, breaking the ice as the magic of the portal transversed the two... worlds? Realms? Emma was at a loss – this was a whole new ball of crazy. She’d barely gotten use to having Snow White as a mother, and now she was dealing with magic portals and Neverland and who knows what else. Ever since she’d come to Storybrooke, there had been no space to _breathe_ , only a constant fight to undo the curse, to break it, to return home, to defeat each villain as they came and now _this_. She was _tired_.

But she couldn’t rest. Not now.

“So you’re saying that when Peter Pan disappears into another world, that this whole world just... _freezes_?” she raised her brows as she asked the question, unable to quite believe it even with the evidence of Hook’s words staring her in the face. This was a frozen world all right, right from its air to its dark waters. How could a whole sea _freeze_? How could anyone _survive_ such temperatures?

How could _Henry_ survive it?

Hook drew his eyes away from the mists, walking to lean against a mast of his ship. “Exactly that, sweetheart, it’s not that hard to figure out.” His hook gestured to the world around them, and involuntarily, Emma shivered. The chill of the mists seemed to seep into her bones, and her wet jacket and hair didn’t help matters much at all. “And as long as your boy is smart enough to huddle near a fire, he ought to survive until Pan returns. The beasts only begin hunting when the ice thaws.”

“And how long will that be?” Regina’s voice was sudden and sharp behind Emma. In her worry and confusion, she had almost forgotten the others there – Rumplestiltskin, Regina, even David. Her mind had focused in on her son, and the man who could provide her the answers she wanted. But now she was called to attention, and the silence of the two sorcerers made a knot form in Emma’s gut. If _they_ didn’t even know the rules and ways of this world, then all their luck was nestled in Hook’s knowledge, and Hook was all too capricious a man, his allegiances changing with the wind. Once he’d sworn to be on her side, only to then lock her in a cell – Emma didn’t forget things like that.

She didn’t forget anything.

The pirate shrugged. “Whenever the boy deems it time to return, hours or days or weeks as it may be. He’s not exactly the _constant_ sort, love.”

Emma could think of another that would fit that description.

 

* * *

 

“We’ll find Henry, Emma, you know we will.”

She wished she could believe David – her father, Charming – but Emma had always struggled with the concept of blind faith, of leaping into empty air and hoping that there was something solid hidden in front of her. Trust was hard for her to manage, and she fumbled with it, putting up walls so she didn’t have to deal with it and its complications within her life. She was a cop, a bail bondsperson, and despite all that had occurred in the last year to turn her life upside down, she still wanted the hard facts. It was easier to deal with the tangible than _this_ , especially when _this_ referred to the things of fairytales and kid’s books. She was constantly thrown about by this world; it wasn’t safe, or predictable, and half the time, it wasn’t even pleasant, but it was what she had. Here, she had a family, had friends, had more roots than she’d managed to make in the twenty eight years before Storybrooke had entered her life, so here was where she belonged.

Still she sighed, pulling her hair into a tight ponytail. She’d hoped the mist might have cleared – perhaps they’d arrived early in the morning? – but it seemed as dense as ever. Even the water exposed through the cracks in the ice – as little as it was – seemed to barely move, though it rippled and lapped gently against the ship’s side every so often. “I need a bit more to go on than that, David.” Emma winced. She kept slipping up, saying David instead of Dad, saying Dad instead of David. She didn’t know what to call anyone anymore – their personas, their names? There was too much confusion, and not enough time and space to sort through it all. The only clear spot on the horizon was her goal – _get to Henry, bring him back home_. After that, then she could sit down and rest for a while, wait for the town to grow more beans and decide whether or not she wanted to follow them into the Enchanted Forest. There hadn’t seemed to be much of it left when she’d journeyed there, but maybe that was part of the appeal, the rebuilding.

“What if they haven’t lit a fire?” she asked quietly, hands gripping at the lip of the gunwale. “What if he’s cold and Pan doesn’t come back for days, or _weeks_? What if he dies while we’re stuck here on the ice and fog?” She voiced the fears that had come into her mind as soon as Hook had retreated below deck and left her to ponder the ramifications of finding Neverland as it was, cold and barren and sparse.

David’s arm came around her and squeezed at Emma’s shoulder. For a moment, she was taunt and tense, and then she relaxed. This was what having a parent was like, a _real_ parent, and not just one who was there for the pay check that came along with their names. This is what she’d missed for twenty eight years, because of a curse and a prophecy that said she’d free them all from it. One curse was all it had taken, and she’d been without family and a true home for nearly three decades. She’d had it all back for a while – the briefest of moments – before life came to snatch it away from her again. But this time, she wasn’t going to let it take another thing from her. She’d been just a kid when they’d put in her in the magic wardrobe – now she was full grown, and she’d fight fate, destiny or whatever the _hell_ it was that tried to take her family from her again.

Beside her, David sighed. “They’re smart Emma. I know you mightn’t like to hear it, but Tamara? Greg? They’re not dumb. They played us well enough to almost destroy Storybrooke, so they’ll know to light a fire. Henry will be safe. Come on, Hook says it’s getting dark.”

“He can tell through this mist?” she said dryly. She couldn’t even begin to guess the time – the sun was smothered in the sky. For all intents and purposes, they were blind and lost in the mist, stranded ducks waiting for their fate. It made Emma chafe inside her skin to be like that, to have to _wait_ when she wanted to charge forward and rip this world apart to find her son. Surely Regina or Rumplestiltskin could do their magic and blow away the mists and melt the ice. They were feared sorcerers; surely they could do _something_ about it.

David looked just as doubtful as she did. “It _is_ Hook.”

And Hook was part of Peter Pan’s story – was that the hidden message? That because Hook was written inside of this tale, that he knew more than he could possibly express about this place? She was grasping at air and coming up with nothing, and Emma hated it.

 

* * *

 

Nibbet scampered down the hole as quickly as his small limbs could take him. He’d always been a small boy – small and neat, with nimble fingers and an agile step that had helped him thieve from pockets and dart through crowds. He was fast and tricky to grab a hold of, and he’d never once lost one of the dares that Peter had sent him on. One time, Peter had dared him to go and steal a claw from a sleeping panther, with a pelt as dark as the night sky as itself. Peter had said that if he got the claw, he could wear it around his neck and he’d get to lead the boys for the next week, but Nibbet had done it mostly for Peter’s admiration. No one was as brave and quick and fearless as Peter was, and Peter was everything to the boys.

So during the dusk, while the beasts were still sleeping, he’d crept up on the panther, and with his little knife, cut its toe off in a quick move. He’d had to be quick – the beast had awoken with a fright and roared at him, swiping at him with a great, heavy paw, but Nibbet was already flying away, Tink’s golden paste spread in a line across his arms, across his legs and drawn across his shoulder blades as if to give him fairy wings himself. Peter had cut the claw away from the panther’s toe himself, and then fixed it to a cord of twined and plaited vines from the jungle, before draping it over Nibbet’s neck. It was Nibbet’s first gift that he could remember, and it meant the world to him.

Claw had been put out of course. Claw, after all, was named _claw_ , but hadn’t gotten a claw himself. Peter had sent him to go find golden coin with a hole in the middle, and that was looped around Claw’s neck instead, but Nibbet didn’t think that Claw needed another weapon. If Nibbet’s knife was quick, then Claw’s was faster, and the young boy wasn’t afraid to use his sharp nails and gnash his teeth when he fought.

“Quick, quick!” Nibbet cried out as he run through the rooms of the small house. “Wake up, wake up!” The Lost Boys didn’t spring awake like they usually did; the cold pressed down on them like it did everything else. They hated to see Peter go, for when he went, the cold came, and that was when they lost most of the boys. The youngest ones mostly, who’d barely been out of their cribs when they’d flown away to Neverland. They came down with coughs that racked their chest, and though they’d given them their medicine (water measured in acorns, because Peter said that that was medicine enough), they’d sickened and worsened. Though some of the boys remembered that you ought to bury bodies, they never had any time for it, and the ground was too cold and hard for such nonsense, so they threw the bodies away, deep into the forest. They weren’t seen again, so they thought that the birds had got them, and taken them to the Elsewheres.

“What’s the matter?” Bits asked sleepily, rubbing at his eyes with a hand. “All the creatures are sleeping when the cold comes, so why are you waking us?”

The words burst out of him in a rush. “There’s a _ship_!” Nibbet exclaimed. “I was scouting for the pirates like I always do, and the mermaids came to me and they say there’s a _ship_ out beyond the Jagged Reef!”

“A ship?” Raggles asked, mouth wide. “But that _means_...”

Nibbet nodded enthusiastically. “It means _Hook_.”

And there was no disguising the excitement in his voice.


End file.
